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Sunday, July 29, 2007

Pulp fiction

I have finished pt 3 of the "How do I detest thee?" series. Unfortunately, I don't have it with me, and thus will post it Monday.

In other news, I've mentioned before (here and here) that I'm a fan of the pulp fiction of Edgar Rice Burroughs. Yesterday my local library was having a book sale and I found (and purchased for 50 cents) a 1978 paperback edition of The Eternal Lover by Burroughs. Or rather, the book I bought is named The Eternal Savage (apparently the publishers figured that was a more appropriate title for the target audience.)

I was pretty glad to find it as I'd never even heard of this one before, which isn't surprising given the volume of work that Burroughs churned out. This one is a Tarzan spin-off story. The back of the book description reads

An American girl goes to Africa to visit Tarzan in his jungle home, and while there she is thrust into the most astonishing science-fiction adventure on record. Through a flaw in the structure of Time itself, a handsome warrior from the Stone Age appears in modern days .. then is drawn back to his own time, bringing the girl into a world of cave people, saber-tooth tigers and prehistoric jungle.

The first chapter is titled 'Nu of the Niocene'. Yep, it's pulp literature allright.

In other pulp fiction news, the Sci-Fi channel debuts its new series Flash Gordon on Friday, Aug. 10 at 9 pm. If you haven't seen the original movie serial trilogy (1936-40) ... well, you're missing out. Plus, you can't fully appreciate Star Wars until you watch Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Actually, maybe watch the first two minutes of Chapter 2 to see what I mean (the other link goes to Chapter 1.)

1 comment:

Yeah, but special effects really didn't catch up with the requirements of the Flash Gordon universe until recently, so the old movies and shows really weren't up to snuff.

The old television show was dreadful. The 1980 movie was primarily notable for perhaps setting Timothy Dalton's career back about 10 years. Pretty rotten special effects, wooden acting, the usual problems in SciFi as done by Hollywood.

I used to love the old comic strips, though.

As for ERB, well, there's only so much you can do with a "noble savage meets sweet modern girl" plot, but ERB does as much as can be expected. I used to love that stuff, but sometime in the last forty years my tastes have gone more towards more conflicted heroes.

I'd like to see the Google founders fund a making of the Startide Rising books into movies (other books might be better, but given the family connections, I could accept it). I think the technology is just about ready...